The Kabul Tribune (KT) — Kazakhstan is on track for its strongest wheat flour export season in years, with rising demand from Afghanistan helping revive an industry that once made the country the world's largest flour exporter, The Times of Central Asia reported.
Citing Yevgeny Karabanov, chairman of the Analytics
Committee of the Grain Union of Kazakhstan, the publication said wheat flour
exports are forecast to reach 2.12 million metric tons during the 2025-26
marketing year. Shipments had already reached 1.87 million tons after the first
10 months of the season, an increase of 18.3% compared with the same period a
year earlier.
Kazakhstan exported 1.88 million tons of wheat flour in
2024, making it the world's second-largest exporter after Turkey, according to
international trade data cited by the report. About 15 years ago, Kazakhstan
was the world's leading flour exporter before losing market share as competing
countries expanded their own milling industries.
Afghanistan remains the largest destination for Kazakh flour
exports. According to The Times of Central Asia, Afghanistan imported about 1.23
million tons of Kazakh flour in 2024, accounting for roughly two-thirds of
Kazakhstan's total flour exports. Karabanov said shipments to Afghanistan
increased by another 21.5% during the first 10 months of the current marketing
year.
The report said exporting flour instead of raw wheat allows
Kazakhstan to process grain domestically and capture more of its value before
it is shipped abroad.
However, Afghanistan has taken steps to strengthen its
domestic milling industry by raising tariffs on imported flour while lowering
duties on wheat imports. Those policy changes have contributed to a sharp
increase in wheat imports in recent months, suggesting the country may
eventually process more grain domestically rather than importing flour.
Despite those efforts, Afghanistan remains heavily dependent
on imported cereals. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates the
country will require 3.7 million tons of cereal imports during the 2025-26
marketing year, most of it in the form of wheat flour, because of limited
domestic milling capacity and reduced wheat production caused by dry weather.
The report noted that Kazakhstan's recovery in flour exports
is part of a broader expansion in agricultural trade. Between September 2025
and July 30, 2026, the country exported 13.9 million tons of grain and flour,
measured in grain equivalent, a 12.6% increase from the previous year, with
Uzbekistan and Afghanistan among its largest markets.
According to The Times of Central Asia, Kazakhstan is also
seeking to expand higher-value agricultural processing and plans to increase
its grain deep-processing capacity nearly tenfold by 2028 as part of a broader
strategy to generate more revenue from processed agricultural products rather
than raw grain exports.
